James Gunn’s Superman had a fairly super opening weekend.
The movie grossed an estimated $122 million in domestic theaters plus another $95 million overseas for a total of $217 million. That’s a huge improvement over most of DC’s movies of late, including The Flash ($55 million), Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom ($27.6 million), and the disastrous Joker: Folie a Deux ($37.6 million). Given that Gunn’s Superman is the first feature in a brand new DC Universe, that’s not just a good sign; it’s practically a necessary one.
Superman is just the third film of 2025 with an opening weekend of $100 million or more, after A Minecraft Movie ($162 million) and Lilo & Stitch ($146 million). The last DC movie to open with $100 million in theaters in its opening weekend was The Batman, which earned $134 million in three days back in 2022.
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Notably, it is also the biggest opening weekend for a solo Superman movie in history. That fact does come with an asterisk, as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opened to $166 million in 2016. That was a mega-blockbuster with two A-list DC heroes though (or three, if you include Wonder Woman) — and if you believe the reported budget figures online, it cost more than Gunn’s Superman as well. ($250 million versus $225 million, at least according to what’s listed on sites like Box Office Mojo.)
While Gunn’s Superman did outgross Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel in their respective opening weekends, $122 million versus $116 million, it’s worth noting that those numbers don’t take inflation into account — and if you adjust Man of Steel’s total, you wind up with $161 million.
So: James Gunn’s Superman is off to a very solid start. It’s already amongst the biggest Superman films ever made. But it needs to continue to do well — something that will be tough to do in the weeks ahead as more competition arrives in theaters, including new Smurfs and I Know What You Did Last Summer films, and, most importantly, Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
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